Britons: Excuse me, but do you think it would be possible for me to enter through this door?
Malaysians: (pointing the door) can ar?

WHEN ENTERTAINING

Britons: Please make yourself right at home.
Malaysians: Don’t be shy, lah!

WHEN DOUBTING SOMEONE

Britons: I don’t recall you giving me the money.
Malaysians: Where got?

WHEN DECLINING AN OFFER

Britons: I’d prefer not to do that, if you don’t mind.
Malaysians: Don’t want la…

IN DISAGREEING ON A TOPIC OF DISCUSSION

Britons: Err. Tom, I have to stop you there. I understand where you’re coming from, but I really have to disagree with what you said about the issue.
Malaysians: You mad, ah?

WHEN ASKING SOMEONE TO LOWER THEIR VOICE

Britons: Excuse me, but could you please lower your voice, I’m trying to concentrate over here.
Malaysians: Shut up lah!

WHEN ASKING SOMEONE IF HE/SHE KNOWS YOU

Britons: Excuse me, but I noticed you staring at me for some time.. Do I know you?
Malaysians: See what, see what?

WHEN ASSESSING A TIGHT SITUATION

Britons: We seem to be in a bit of a predicament at the moment.
Malaysians: Die-lah!!

WHEN TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT HAD HAPPENED

Britons: Will someone tell me what has just happened?
Malaysians: Wat happen Why like that….

WHEN SOME ONE DID SOMETHING WRONG

Britons: This isn’t the way to do it, here let me show you,
Malaysians: like that also don’t know how to do!!!!

WHEN ONE IS ANGRY

Britons: Would you mind not disturbing me
Malaysians: Celaka u

IN PARLIAMENT, THE QUESTION ON “BOCOR”

Briton: Where is the leak? I shall ask the Works Minister to look into it.
Malaysian: STUPID, STUPID, STUPID question. Where got “bocor” ?

This entry was posted on Saturday, 30 June 2007, 10:10 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I personally received this forwarded mail from a friend 3 years ago. No wonder it is known as Manglish – an amalgam of Mangled English…LOL. What a shame to our national identity! At least Singlish is enough to get you by.

Had we continued with the language policy of the 70s until today,I don’t think we would be able to hear such horrendous English spoken by our younger generation today.So who is the culprit for causing such a steep fall to the standard of our English?At one time,Malaysian English was on par with most Commonwealth countries if not better.I remember many people could communicate with Singaporeans at ease in the 70s.But alas today our younger generation will shy away.It is real sheer pity.Isn’t it?

One may ask whether Ã¢â‚¬Å“ManglishÃ¢â‚¬Â (Malaysian mangled English) is really that Ã¢â‚¬Å“horrendousÃ¢â‚¬Â. I think our usage can be charming, utilitarian and even creative for which we should be proud of.

We donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have to follow English exactly the same elaborate way it is spoken or written by the British. It is not our first language.

Besides English is now an international language. The English have no monopoly to the way it is spoken or written Ã¢â‚¬â€œ with local accents, flavours and additions. Indeed the English language is richer for its borrowings from others. Coup deÃ¢â‚¬â„¢etat, detour, dossier, laissez faire, fait accompli, nouveau riche were borrowed from the French as amok, paddy gong, orang-utan, satay and sarong, borrowed from Malay.

The process is both ways : we have also borrowed from the English and created new words like Ã¢â‚¬Å“gostanÃ¢â‚¬Â, a reference to going backwards, retracting a position, back tracking. This is a very creative expression inspired by the word Ã¢â‚¬Å“go asternÃ¢â‚¬Â, astern being the back or rear of a ship or boat, and going astern being popularly used for the vessel going stern backwards.

Language is affected by culture and history. At least between ourselves whatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s wrong using Ã¢â‚¬Å“kwei loÃ¢â‚¬Â or Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mat SallehsÃ¢â‚¬Â in substitution of Ã¢â‚¬Å“CaucasiansÃ¢â‚¬Â?

If our usage is Ã¢â‚¬Å“simple, short, concise, straight-to-point, effectiveÃ¢â‚¬Â, maybe the British should consider following some of our expressions. After all, being Ã¢â‚¬Å“simple, short, concise, straight-to-point, effectiveÃ¢â‚¬Â is the first object of any communication.

I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t really think there is anything wrong when, for examples, we spice up our spoken English with local embellishments at the end of sentence like Ã¢â‚¬Å“lahÃ¢â‚¬Â and Ã¢â‚¬Å“manÃ¢â‚¬Â for emphasis especially when speaking to fellow Malaysians. For practical purposes of avoiding being misunderstood, we should of course try to desist from using these slang expressions when speaking with foreigners not familiar with them.

Interestingly we Malaysians can be quite flexible in the sense that we can change their speaking styles in accordance with the person being spoken to. We may adopt a completely different slang and accent when speaking to someone of a different race. Some of us speak English to the Brits, American, Australian, Indians differently as we would to own Malaysians. This is to facilitate understanding, a utilitarian objective but where people by training of their mother tongue just cannot pronounce the word properly, donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t laugh at them.

The Chinese and the Japanese often switch their Ã¢â‚¬Å“lÃ¢â‚¬Âs for Ã¢â‚¬ËœrÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s. I have heard some Chinese (Malaysians) say Ã¢â‚¬Å“donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t play playÃ¢â‚¬Â (intending to mean, be serious or view the importance of a matter) coming across as Ã¢â‚¬Å“DonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t pray prayÃ¢â‚¬Â. (Another pronounce Ã¢â‚¬Å“rapeÃ¢â‚¬Â as Ã¢â‚¬Å“rapÃ¢â‚¬Â Ã¢â‚¬Å“rapÃ¢â‚¬ÂÃ¢â‚¬Â¦. Then the Japanese pronounce their Ã¢â‚¬Å“general electionÃ¢â‚¬Â as Ã¢â‚¬Å“general erectionÃ¢â‚¬Â.

I thought it was quite charming Ã¢â‚¬â€œ just like Ã¢â‚¬Å“Got any lobang or jalan ahhhÃ¢â‚¬Â referring to opportunity!
.

Whilst written and spoken language should be Ã¢â‚¬Å“simple, short, concise, straight-to-point, effectiveÃ¢â‚¬Â, the contentious part relating the Manglish is whether these objectives should be achieved at the expense of turning upside down and bastardising English rules concerning grammatical structure.

“Why are you behaving in that way?” or Ã¢â‚¬Å“why has the situation become that way?Ã¢â‚¬Â may be compendiously expressed “Why like that?” (a translation from Cantonese?) Or the BritsÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ “I haven’t seen you in a long time” become in manglish Ã¢â‚¬Å“Long time no seeÃ¢â‚¬Â with all rules of prepositions thrown to the wind.

Ã¢â‚¬Å“LaÃ¢â‚¬Â and Ã¢â‚¬Å“mahÃ¢â‚¬Â are new suffixes of Malaysian creation functioning expediently without more words to explain a whole gamut of emotion by their inflectional ending. The difference between “I didn’t know la” and “I didn’t know mah” is that in the case of the former, the person is not seeking understanding from the other whilst in the second case the expression imports a touch of regret and apology, implicitly seeking understanding.

The suffix Ã¢â‚¬Å“whatÃ¢â‚¬Â is somewhat used differently Ã¢â‚¬â€œ not to convey emotional states Ã¢â‚¬â€œ but to express with brutal efficiency in one word that normally in English would take four : for example, instead of saying Ã¢â‚¬Å“it is plain thatÃ¢â‚¬Â or Ã¢â‚¬Å“it is obvious thatÃ¢â‚¬Â UMNOÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s cronies are corrupt or rich, in Manglish it is condensed to UMNOÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s cronies are corrupt or rich what!

The word Ã¢â‚¬Å“arhÃ¢â‚¬Â is used top denote question mark. You sure you want to marry her arh? Is menat to emphasise doubt and that the other person better think carefully. Ã¢â‚¬Å“MehÃ¢â‚¬Â is sometimes used for same purpose as Ã¢â‚¬Å“arhÃ¢â‚¬Â as for example, Ã¢â‚¬Å“you think you very smart meh?Ã¢â‚¬Â (note the concomitant dispensation of the subject verb agreement Ã¢â‚¬Å“areÃ¢â‚¬Â between Ã¢â‚¬Å“youÃ¢â‚¬Â and Ã¢â‚¬Å“veryÃ¢â‚¬Â.

So Manglish is often used in an efficient way to say things with maximum effect and nuance and minimum words but the big question is : can these objectives of economy and brevity of words be pursued in sacrifice of grammatical structure and dispensation of prepositions and subject verb agreement; can we still hold claim that our Manglish is an offshoot and a branch of the broader tree of Enghlish as internationally spoken if disregard the grammatical rules? Are grammatical rules so integral part of a language that to dispense them is to jettison the whole language overboard and it is no more there or, no, the language (English) is still being used but modified to make its use more efficient?

The test is always that of substantiality with an arbitrary benchment delineated at say 50%. If for example 90% of the language usage is English and the disregard of grammar rules and addition of local suffixes like “what”, “Mah” and “Lah” constitute only 10% or 20% of the content, then I suppose it is still “substantially” English.

However, if the situation is one in which 50% or more of these local variations, then it is probably justified to say that it is no more English, it being some kind of local language borrowing heavily from English.

The situations above are due to the fact that English is 2nd or 3rd language after our mother tongues. For me, whenever I try to elaborate something in English, my brain somehow needs to tune in to the translation from my mother tongue to the English terms, and then incapacitated by my limited vocabulary available for use in casual occasions.Coupled with our social and cultural forces in the background, we are who we are today. The jokes above is actually no jokes!

Look at some of the words spoken in service situations. People may say that we have poor customer service. The cause? Poor English language proficiency.

Even in MUET tests, we still have people failing. Lots of STPM leavers cannot get into universities. Isn’t this a waste?

Regardless of the testing method, poor language proficency won’t get us anywhere. Furthermore, I’ve eye-witnessed a case where a 7 Eleven cashier cannot understand English, thus losing some business from tourists! How can we potray the image of our promotional campaign on tourism (Visit Malaysia 2007)? Hey, half a year has passed!

In a nutshell, English proficency is no longer an advantage. It is a necessity – having not equipped with it will make us lose our competitiveness.

Yah-lah! This garmen, er, die-die aso so stubborn one. Why never listen to we people. always ask vote, vote, vote… aso do nothing for us, ar. Everytime tok and tok but do nothing. How to challen Sin-chia-poh? They so clever one, but even they kiasu aso beat us flat.
Now from nowhere the mata-mata boss say JB safe back aredi.. eh, real or not, ah? The PM also always tok-tok but like fang-pi only do nothing. The mah-wah also 1-kind, so boh-sia in the garmen, dun noe if they work or not lah!
This serious,man, no joking one!

I was recently in the UK for two years, studying there. The locals are amazed by our (malaysian) english. To them, we speak like how the queen speaks, it’s word by word and with minimum grammar mistakes. When they (locals) speak, they use a lot of slang and they always get their grammar wrong.

To be honest, I have yet hear anyone in the UK under the age of 60 speaking like the way this email suggests. Even my lecturers in the university, they never speak like that!

What I am trying to say is, we do not need to be ashame on how we speak the language, as long as the communication is successful and the message is conveyed.

By the way, most of the Europeans (Eastern and Western) speaks horrible english or no english at all.

This is a very good one. May I add some more?
I often hear some Malaysians talking about the Malaysian politeness and friendliness as opposed to the crude ways of Ã¢â‚¬Å“Budaya BaratÃ¢â‚¬Â. But having lived in the United Kingdom and Europe for a few years I tend to think otherwise. The average Briton or European are more courteous than the average Malaysian.
One more example
Britons: Excuse me Miss.
Malaysian: Hey! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Oi!

Aiyoo, uncle Lim,
why your friend so like that one ah? We Malaysians all like this lah, i talk you know, you talk i know enough lah! No need lah talking like English people one, some English also donno to talk properly english what!
Anyway, thankyu ha, i can laugh with this topic lah, the other one all very sad lah, want to cry for my Malaysia lah.
cheers

Veli funny. Nowdays even spelling also all out. aiyoyo…that day in a certain place also got bocor. I think have to force latuk somebody to be firm on all these kebocoran. Don’t know why not just court bocor. Seems like everywhere bocor especially in the ceiling. I think these contractors got no skills to make the ceiling. In Malaysia, depends on which race to speak English. I denger banyak Melayu cakap you untuk awak. I, I, I here and you, you, you there. Therefore, Malaysia is indeed a colourful country. She is truely unique. At least we still can understand English and not like some who should know English but don’t know English. Like professionals, like university graduates; they are suppose to know English.

I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter how one speaks a language, as long as the speaker is polite and reasonable. I’ve many Chinese & Japanese friends who do not speak proper English. However, you can see that they do try their best, and, their politeness does add a touch of elegance.

We, Malaysians, seem to have dispensed with politeness, and, hence not only does our usage of any language seem rough, if not down right uncouth.